Students learn glacial landforms and create a landform map including a location grid (eg. position A2) and map key.
A semester-long audio recording project, defined by the needs of a community organization, engages students in not only learning new content but sharing their new knowledge beyond classroom walls (and beyond the professor). This assignment, focusing on "engaged digital scholarship," challenges students to increase their information literacy and use of audio to effectively communicate scientific information for a general audience. This project has been embedded in several different introductory-level Earth science courses for non-science majors, with the resulting podcasts being shared with varied community groups. The example presented here focuses on students in a "Water: Science and Society" course generating podcasts that respond to specific content questions posed by Pennsylvania K-12 teachers, with the resulting podcasts posted on the website for the Pennsylvania Earth Science Teachers Association (PAESTA).
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Student-designed, data-based authentic research projects can be useful tools for incorporating a dimension of authentic research in non-major science courses. Such an approach has been followed in a geoscience course for non-majors at UW Whitewater. Students worked in pairs and selected a research topic on a local environmental issue, wrote a research proposal, collected, analyzed and synthesized data, and presented their research in a public poster presentation session. They critiqued their peers' proposals and posters, and assessed their own learning. Student self-assessment reports indicated that they found such projects to be personally enriching. Students reported significant learning gains from participating in this project. Such an approach can be applicable in a variety of courses for promoting student engagement in science classrooms.
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Stunner, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.
This module introduces students to subduction zone metamorphism through the examination of rock samples, calculating P-T-t paths, and comparing them to thermal model predictions of P-T paths.
This Western Mining History database uses Mineral Resources Data System to list known Colorado historical mines by county. Each county site has links to the known mines within its borders. Some are known and named, others are unnamed. Mines should be assumed to be on private property unless other research is conducted. Data provided for each mine site include: Name, State, County, Elevation, Primary Mineral Mined, Latitude and Longitude and a link to Google Maps. Photos are provided where available. Additional information for some Mines are satellite photos, and ownership, business and historical records. Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a great database for student historical research or data and statistics classes. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.
Summitville, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.
How does solar radiation interact with the Earth and its atmosphere to cause global warming? Use this model to see what's going on at the molecular level. Watch the effects of sunlight and then watch the effects of infrared radiation, also known as heat radiation, on the ground and on carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Sunset, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.
Sunshine, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.
This activity introduces students to the EPA's Surf Your Watershed website as they investigate a local waterway of their choice. The assignment guides students to analyze data about the waterway's current and historical discharge rates and impairments to water quality.
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Investigate the surface tension of water using ground pepper. Colorado Americorp agents in Araphahoe, Denver, Garfield, Larimer, and Weld Counties. Work supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service under Americorps grant number 18AFHCO0010008. Opinions or points of view expressed in this lesson are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of or a position that is endorsed by the Corporation or the Americorps program. This resource is also available in Spanish in the linked file.
This is a lab exercise where students make synthetic trace fossils (using fishing lures) that was presented as a scientific study: BIOGENIC SEDIMENTARY STRUCTURES PRODUCED BY WORMS IN SOUPY, SOFT MUDS: OBSERVATIONS FROM THE CHATTANOOGA SHALE (UPPER DEVONIAN) AND EXPERIMENTS, by VADEC LOBZA AND JURGEN SCHIEBER, JOURNAL OF SEDIMENTARY RESEARCH, VOL. 69, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER, 1999, P. 1041��1049
In this activity, learners explore center of gravity, or balance point, of stacked blocks. Simple wooden blocks can be stacked so that the top block extends completely past the end of the bottom block, seemingly in a dramatic defiance of gravity. A mathematical pattern can be noted in the stacking.
Students use a spreadsheet to compute the hypothetical risk of an Andrew-like hurricane to downtown Miami.
This is an activity that uses the spreadsheet program Excel to explore the origins of subsidence in New Orleans. There are two versions. The first is a traditional Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum (SSAC) module that couples a PowerPoint presentation with an embedded Excel spreadsheet where students construct a spreadsheet, and then submit the Excel file for grading. The second is a macro-enabled Excel spreadsheet that provides automatic feedback to answers and calculates the score. Upon completion the students are given a code that encrypts their spreadsheet score and then take a follow-up quiz that probes their understanding.
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Students use spreadsheets to analyze the reasons why New Orleans has subsided in the past 250 years.
This is an introductory laboratory excercise that familiarizes students with the general appearance of fossils and the multiple modes of preservation that are possible.
A fluid flowing from an upper beaker into a lower beaker (shampoo in this case) behaves mathematically identically to radioactive decay, mimicking the exponential decay process, dependent on the amount of fluid in the upper beaker (representing the amount of parent isotopes) and the size of the hole in the beaker (representing the decay constant). Students measure the fluid depth with time for several "runs" with varied conditions, then graph their results, create decay equations, manipulate these equations and use them to "date" another experiment. They then apply their new understanding to make predictions regarding complications involved in the decay process and its use in dating (such as daughter loss).
Developed by Lily Claiborne and Calvin Miller.
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EME 807 overviews a wide range of contemporary technologies in the context of sustainability and examines metrics for their assessment. The course explores the main principles that guide modern science and technology towards sustainable solutions. It covers such topics as resource management technologies, waste and wastewater treatment, renewable energy technologies, high performance buildings and transportation systems, application of informatics and feedback to sustainable systems, and more. Learning in EME 807 heavily relies on real-life examples and taps into current practices of technology analysis. This course goes beyond understanding the background, fostering critical thinking and challenging the students to draw connections between social, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainable technologies.